Page 20 of Love Spell (Witches of London #3)

Timo continued with his charade throughout dinner — all nice, smiley, asking Noah questions that were interested, sometimes personal, but never invasive or crossing lines.

Noah wished he would make suggestive comments or boast about his latest marathon.

Just so Noah was Noah and Timo was Timo and the world wasn’t perfect but it kept running on the same track as usual.

With Timo in dress shirt and slacks, Noah didn’t feel that he could change into jeans and a T-shirt. He’d followed along, only removing his tie and jacket, washed face and hands, and returned to accept a glass of wine and dinner.

Thanks to the sun setting and mood-lighting with dimmers on and the glittering skyline beyond huge windows, the atmosphere was uncomfortably romantic, not helped by a hushed background of classical music.

No candles, but there was a crystal vase of orange calla lilies on the table.

Nothing wrong with having flowers on a table, though they hadn’t been there that morning.

Noah only stole glances at them when Timo wasn’t looking his way.

They were quite arresting, the thick bunch of blooms reminiscent of leaping flames at the top of their dark green stems in the narrow vase.

The whole display looked like a burning torch.

It was the meal itself, not Timo’s supposed charm or the alcohol, that helped Noah calm down. Noah couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper, all homemade, sit-down-with-another-human-being meal at home.

It was so good, so damn good, creamy and savoury, hot and fresh, with tender mushrooms, noodles cooked just right, and beef that melted in the mouth, Noah struggled to get through it.

The food, complete with a salad of baby kale with toasted walnuts, pear, and a homemade raspberry vinaigrette, made Noah think of home and family and dinners in a way he had not thought in years.

“Won’t you have more? No, don’t get up; I’ll get it.” Timo had switched his smile from top-of-the-food-chain to angelic. Even his tone was melting, somehow softening the Russian accent, which tended to grow a trace more pronounced when he was excited or had a couple drinks in him.

Noah dutifully sat, shaking his head as Timo brought the pot with seconds for them both. “How can you possibly think you’re not under some kind of outside influence?”

“Pardon me?” Timo paused in taking up more.

“Okay, even you saying that — argh … Never mind.”

Once Timo settled again, he asked another question. Noah would have tried some of his own, but he didn’t want Timo to think he was interested enough to ask personal questions. Could send the wrong signal.

“If you could have anyone as a dinner guest, who would you choose?”

“From any time?” Noah asked.

“Absolutely anyone.”

“Mrs Tolstoy.”

Timo laughed.

“How about you?”

“My mother.”

“Is she in Russia?”

“Technically. She died when I was seventeen.”

“I’m sorry …”

“I just wish she could see that I reached all she ever wanted for me — aside from the wife and kids bit.” Timo’s smile returned. “She gave everything for us, got me to stay in school by her own example of hard work when no amount of lectures by teachers or police could pin me down.”

“Were you poor? Your family?”

Timo appeared to consider the question as he chewed a bite. “My mother used to mix a spoonful of corn syrup, cheapest sweetener we could get, in warm water, pour it in empty jam jars, set sticks in it, and put it outside overnight to freeze. That was our after-school treat.”

“That’s … poor.”

“It was certainly frugal. We made do.”

“Who we? Siblings?”

“Three sisters, two brothers, in that order. I was the eldest boy, right in the middle.”

“You don’t strike me as a middle child. Where was your dad in all this?”

“Gone. He left when the youngest was a toddler.”

“He walked out on six kids? Why?”

“Because he was a bastard.” Timo regarded him sadly, as if disappointed that he must explain something so obvious. “He’d had his fun and I suppose he was fed up with my mother thinking more of our needs than of his needs.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me something else,” Timo said. “What does a perfect day look like to you?”

“Seventy-four Fahrenheit, a few fluffy clouds, light breeze.”

This time, Noah didn’t get the joke when Timo laughed. “What would you do for it to be a perfect day? Not the forecast.”

Noah felt his cheeks burn and kept eating.

So he really was as dim as Timo was finding him.

“Right, uh, good food, time with friends, discovering something new — art, city, museum, I don’t know.

But I like to be outdoors too. I wouldn’t say no to zip-lining in Thailand.

The perfect day depends on the mood you’re in at the time, the season, the people you’re with — it’s kind of impossible to answer. ”

Timo had refilled their wine glasses and they’d both emptied their plates before he had another one: “If you could spontaneously gain one quality or ability, what would it be?”

“Where are you getting these questions from?”

Widening his eyes, Timo showed both open palms as if to demonstrate his own lack of cheating. “Only curious. Is that also a sin now?”

“Hmm. Okay, I’d have a flawless sixth sense about the market so all my trades turned out well.”

“You think about work too much.”

“ Me? How about you?”

“Anyway, I already have that power,” Timo added with a glint of his old seductive smile. “Also known as experience and friends in high places. So you don’t need it.”

Noah considered other options, the wine letting him speak more freely. “I’d love to instantly know a new language. In a better world, I’d say Russian. But considering Russia these days … I guess French.”

“You really want to learn Russian?” Watching Noah, Timo ran one finger along the rim of his glass.

“Sure. Half my favourite literature’s from there, even if it’s outdated.”

“How strange, when I’m deliberately trying to lose mine.”

“Lose your first language? That’s terrible.”

“Why?” His tone sharpened. “I’m never going back. I’m not using it. It’s just taking up mental space.”

“The brain isn’t a laptop. I’m sorry, but it seems like a shame. Having two perfect languages is a gift. You could read all of Anna Karenina in the original but you wouldn’t even if you had it, would you? You’d read it in English.”

“I wouldn’t read it at all. But if it was pressed upon me, yes, English.”

“That’s sad. I think so, anyway.” Noah took a drink. “What about you? If you could gain one quality or ability?”

“Be hung like a stallion maybe? Except I’m nearly there already, so better not waste my wishes.” He ignored Noah’s choking as he went on, “I know … I’d be able to joust.”

“What?” Noah coughed.

“Yes. I’d be the world champion jouster.”

“Joust … as in Renaissance fairs? Modern jousting tournaments with horses and armour?”

“Exactly. You’re not the only one who was into knights when you were a boy.”

“But that wasn’t Russian history. I didn’t think you were allowed to study any other kind in school growing up under the Iron Curtain.”

This time Timo coughed. He thunked his glass down with unnecessary force. “How old do you think I am?”

“Uh…?”

“I wasn’t born many years before the downfall of the Soviet Union. My textbooks included Europe, and of course North America, which was the height of cool growing up, especially Hollywood.”

“Dubbed or subtitled?”

“Russian voice-overs, of course,” Timo said rather haughtily. “We had our own A-names in the world of voice talent. I didn’t know what Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise really sounded like until I was twenty-five.”

“What did you think when you found out?”

Timo pulled a face. “Massive disappointment.”

Noah laughed. “I want to see one of those ’90s dubbed movies.”

“I’m sure we can find you one.” Timo’s good spirits seemed to have been restored after the age insult. “Speaking of childhood cinema, do you have a favourite memory?”

“That’s easy. Christmas at my grandparents’ house in Fairbanks when I was a kid.

That was the big city to me. Hardly any daylight hours, wood-burning stove, Grin’s stories about wild animals and strange lands I longed to see by the glow of the Christmas tree, sugary cereals and junk food I was never allowed at home, fitting together jigsaw puzzles, opening presents in flannel pyjamas, drinking hot chocolate with candy canes to stir in pink marshmallows.

” Noah stopped, staring at nothing, lost in visions and scents of pine and peppermint, feelings of safety and home.

After a hush, Timo said, “Grin?”

“Huh?” Noah glanced up, blinked, flushed.

What was happening to him? He’d totally forgotten who he was talking to.

Too much wine. “My maternal grandparents. When I was little, they tried to teach me to say Gran and Gramps, but I mangled it into Gram and Grin. So my grandfather was always Grin to the family after that.”

“Your whole family is from Alaska?”

“Mother’s side only. My dad is an oil engineer from Wyoming. But Wyoming wasn’t big enough or wild enough for him. He worked on the pipeline while I was growing up.”

“Tell me about them.” Timo reached out with the bottle but Noah pulled his glass away.

“I’ve had enough.” Noah chewed his lip. Here was his chance to say what he’d been thinking of saying to Timo about his family if he had to, if it came to that.

Suddenly, he wanted to tell Timo, to justify himself.

Also, to never tell Timo because it was a lie.

Or, rather, it was a surface truth. A close-enough truth.

What if he told Timo the real truth? The truth he’d never told anyone?

No.

“I …” Noah took a breath, squeezed his hands together in his lap, sat back, looked away. “I, uh… What I told you —”

“Is this about you not being gay?” Timo asked mildly.

Noah gazed into his empty glass, wishing it was full.

“When I was thirteen, my mom left my dad for another woman.”

“Good for her.”

Noah glanced at him.

“Sorry? Wrong thing to say?”